I often look to operators such as Nottingham City Transport, Reading Buses and Transdev Blazefield with a certain amount of admiration and respect.
All three companies have invested considerable amounts of time and thought into ways to improve the passenger (customer) experience; everything from contactless payment technology and vehicle interior design to alternative fuel technology.
Despite these advancements, there are still some areas of the country that fail on the most basic elements of making buses look attractive, dynamic and as a tool to help improve the air quality in our towns and cities. These basic elements are information at the roadside.
Many people pass by the humble bus stop and a large proportion of them are potential bus users. Yet we fail to lure them in with accurate information about the products and services on offer.
I recently cycled by a bus stop in Leicester. The location wasn’t some forlorn, semi-isolated, middle-of-nowhere place with one bus a week on market day; it was just round the corner from the Leicestershire County Cricket Club.
The bus stop flag was sporting stickers saying the stop was served by services ’11 Inner Circle’ and ’86’.
Service 11, a circular service tendered by the local authority, ceased to run in 2013. Arriva’s service 86 does still operate, but there was no mention of services 83/83A operated by Centrebus.
Route numbers on bus stop flags have, historically, been the responsibility of the local authority to keep up to date (although I understand there may be some changes afoot). Misinformation such as this has the ability to tarnish the bus industry as a whole and not just one specific operator. The council, which doesn’t operate buses at all, gets off scot-free.
The other failing at this stop was the lack of basic timetable information for any of the routes that served it.
Not everyone can or will get their information through web browsers. Information at the stop provides reassurance to customers.
This isn’t cutting-edge stuff I’m talking about here: These are basic, tick-in-the-box things to provide good solid foundations for accurate information, which grows consumer confidence.
The bus stop is important as a mini selling point for bus services – let’s raise its profile.
Neil Beasley, Leicester
